Monday, August 01, 2016

Map Backgrounds for Panoramic Videos

Regular readers of Maps Mania will probably be aware of Muxlabs' Map on Video effect. This effect for Leaflet maps allows you to place a video behind a semi-transparent Leaflet map. It is a particularly effective method to visualize the locations which are featured in a video.

Greenpeace's latest interactive website takes this effect a little further by superimposing a map on top of a 360-degree panoramic video.

Gestrandete Wale explores the sad plight of beached whales in the Northeast Atlantic. This year 28 sperm whales became beached on the coasts of Denmark, Germany, Great Britain and the Netherlands during the annual migration of Sperm Whales from the Northeast Atlantic to their mating areas around the Azores.

Gestrandete Wale examines the work of Greenpeace and coastguards to rescue beached whales. It also looks at the chronology and locations of whale beachings in the area. To achieve this it has created a spectacular data visualization in which a map and timeline have been superimposed on top of a 360 degree panoramic video.

As the video plays you can pan around and observe a complete 360 degree view around a dinghy as it sails in the Atlantic. A map has been superimposed on top of the video to show the locations where Sperm Whales have become beached in the area this year. The map markers are even interactive, which means that you can hover over the markers to learn more about each beached whale shown on the map.

As you pan around in the video you can also see an interactive timeline which reveals the number of whales that have been beached each year. Again this timeline is interactive and you can learn more by hovering over each year in the timeline.